Sterilising India
Does a local government effort aimed at curbing population growth serve to exclude men from the family planning process?
India is trying to curb population growth through programmes that offer incentives to encourage Indians to undergo sterilisation.
In a district in Rajasthan, the bribes and prizes are mainly offered to women. Critics say the policy is sexist and unfair to women because it means women bear all the responsibility for family planning.
Will India’s all-or-nothing policy achieve the required results? And what are the consequences?
Inside Story, with presenter Stephen Cole, discusses with guests: Poonam Muttreja, the executive director of the Population Foundation of India; Simon Ross, the CEO of Population Matters, a charity that campaigns on issues of global population sustainability; and Neeraj Pavan, the chief administrator of Pali district and the man behind the sterilisation incentives programme.
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“Incentivising is not cajoling or not persuading some person to do something beyond his will. All we are doing is to give some kind of boost to all those people who are willingly coming forward to adopt this small family norm. The [scheme] is not centric only to females. Last year we did do male sterilisation.” Neeraj Pavan, the chief administrator of Pali district, Rajasthan |